7th Experiment contd..

As discussed in last post, we (Winrock- the ngo with which i m working currently) have put of a decentralized power plant which provides electricity to the village and gets fuelled by seeds from Jatropha plant.

I will be sharing one of the most amazing experience which i got while discussing with the villagers here . In all the villages i have been, my focus has been to ascertain ownership feeling of the project by the village community. This project has been an altogether different experience.

While discussing with the villagers, i tried to elicit the sense of ownership and asked them "whose power plant is this" and to my surprise they said (in chattisgariya....one of our village representative helped me in understanding what he said) its ours-all villagers , i interrogated further and in order to confuse them i said how can it be yours..it should be of winrock or operators or government...one of them replied "साहब , इस प्लांट को लगवाने में हमने सहयोग दिया, जत्रोफा का पौधा हमारे श्रम दान से लगा, हम बीज इकठ्ठा करके देते हैं तब बिजली पैदा होती है और उस बिजली से हमारे घर में लाइट आती है, तब तोह ये हमारा ही हुआ न"
Needless say this is what is the ideal state any development intervention seeks to attain where the beneficiary's get the ownership sense of the project.

"Rekindling the dreams" continues.............................